The Roots of Bioethics

"Daniel Callahan is the Dean of bioethics--its major innovator, its early and inspirational leader, and its inner soul. The essays in this volume exhibit many of Dan's unique contributions to bioethics. Everyone who appreciates how crucial the last 50 years have been to bioethics will appreciate how important the essays in this volume are to that history." -Tom L. Beauchamp, Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University "No one in the history of bioethics has been more influential than Dan Callahan. Dan has creatively addressed some of the most powerful bioethics issues over his long career -- often in a distinctively insightful and contrarian fashion. These achievements, along with his role as co-founder of the Hastings Center, have more than earned him recognition as one of a handful of thinkers who shaped the second half of the 20th century." -Jonathan D. Moreno, David and Lyn Silfen University Professor, University of Pennsylvania "It is hard to overstate the wise influence that Dan Callahan has had on American culture and values. He founded the field of bioethics and formed the Hastings Center, which has advanced bioethics scholarship for a generation. Read this book and you will never think the same about a good life and a decent society." -Lawrence O. Gostin, University Professor and Director, O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University "With his usual enviable clarity and concision, Callahan's essays reflect back to us our fractious tormented society through the lens of the central questions. What are the ends of medicine, and for that matter, what are the ends of a society we would want our grandchildren to grow old in? They are the questions keeping all of us awake at night. There is no better guide to the questions and some compelling answers than Dan Callahan." -Diane E. Meier, M.D., Director, Center to Advance Palliative Care, Mount Sinai School of Medicine "A prime mover in the field of bioethics, Dan Callahan has spent the past four decades initiating and deepening our debates about questions that really matter. He writes in this book that he has had a very good life, but his gift to us here is a very good read. We follow Callahan's passionate struggles with the challenges of contemporary biotechnology and his dissents from academic orthodoxies, but we also learn what it means to live a complete life as a deeply reflective, perpetually engaged, and fruitfully skeptical human being."-John D. Arras, University of Virginia "In this relatively short review it would be impossible to do justice to these and the wide variety of other arguments that Callahan deploys in this absorbing collection.. A great book, constantly thought-provoking and constantly interesting, even when one disagrees with some of its claims and arguments, some of them no doubt modified by Callahan since he first presented them." -- Raanan Gillon, Imperial College, London, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "There is notable insight to be gained from the articles a true pioneer in the field chose as representative of his work, as well as from the sections he chose to frame the selection of articles.... The main contribution of this book, then, is the convenience of having the collection of articles in one place..." -- DOODY'S